Wiki vs Google Groups/Sites

For work reasons I've been looking at wikis, as for our international collaboration will need an electronic way of outlining what we're doing, discussing it, and uploading files/images and other such info (and we're not allowed to spend money on flying furriners over here). Oh, and it has to be private and secure...

I must say I hadn't realized how horribly messy and complicated wikis are to set up, or how many non-obvious capabilities and requirements you have with the various wiki options available.

I quickly decided that I didn't want a relational database at the back end, which narrowed the field nicely, before settling on what I hoped to be a relatively simple set of wiki software: the python-powered MoinMoin. Flat file back end and powered by python - it sounded ideal to me.

Five hours later I had a full test site up, but I can't say it was as easy as I'd have liked. Nor was the security and authorization stuff at all transparent (try reading this), in fact I had no idea of whether the test site was secure or not. And wiki syntax is terrible (non intuitive!). I'm amazed wikipedia works at all.

Luckily I then discovered Google Sites ("Create websites and secure group wikis") which I must say I'm very impressed with so far. Simple Google account password protection, revision history and alerts, semi-WYSIWYG editor, comments and attachments. Maybe not industrial strength but much simpler and easier to use. Maybe we'll end up using Google Groups instead, but still much much easier than setting up a localized CMS. Good job Google!